This might not be really offtopic, but I couldn't find a more fitting subforum.

1. Is there a nice sf / sci-fi epos taking place in the solar system (preferably the TNO range, and maybe even a bit beyond)? I'd like to 'reprogram' my space cravings with more realistic scenarios (and it doesn't look like manned interstellar missions will be a fact within a few centuries - if ever. So, it seems a good thing to relocate ones wild fantasies to settings closer to home).

2. Does anyone know if the complete Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) seasons of Doctor Who are available in a box (or several boxes) for region 2? I didn't do extensive research, but did a few searches on Bol.com and Amazon.co.uk, and it seems some serials are released and others not... I'd like an "all for a 100 bucks" kinda deal (an "all for free" would be even better, but I fear this would be labelled as "ATM" )

Thanks!

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Neptune, Titan, Stars can Frighten...

I'm sure what an "epo" is, but most of John Varley's fiction takes place in the Solar System, especially those stories in the "Eight Worlds" universe.

Nick

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Nick Theodorakis

Science fiction set in San Francisco??? It Came from the Castro! SanFranciscohammer 40,000: God-Emperor Norton Awakens! The Bars my Destination!

Seriously, SF is preferred while "sci-fi" is depreciated or at least frowned upon despite the fact that it's perpetuated by a cable channel.

Yet the board is called Off-Topic Babbling. It's like synchronicity.

Episodes? Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. What is an "epo"?

You may be interested in perusing Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter stories. I wonder what William S Burroughs's Barsoom novels would read like...

Kim Stanley Robinson is rumored to have scribbled a handful of novels dealing with Mars and all points inferior and superior.

I'm not a fan of Bova but there's his Grand Tour series.

Have you considered writing your own? Learn about the stuff you're writing and enrich your life tenfold rather than simply being a spectator!

Why so far? Has Earth lost its luster? Richard Morgan has composed a ripsnorting tale called Altered Carbon which takes place on Earth in the future. Yes, distant worlds are referenced but most of the action takes place upon the grimdark hills of Earth. Also it's mightily cold and boring out in the neighborhood of the Kuiper belt. Trust me on this.

Meh, if you're going to do something then go balls to the wall rather than limit yourself but that's just one platonic solid's opinion.

Nedankinde.

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A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government
- Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
If only it was as easy to soothe my hunger by rubbing my belly.
- Diogenes of Sinope
Interdum Taurus Est Victor
- Old Joke

The only book I can think of that took place in that area was one of the Heechee novels where they launch a mission to find an alien factory which has been parked out there, to convert comets into food from the CHON (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen).

The series is by Frederick Pohl. Starts with the novel Gateway. I forget which of the novels it is, definitely not the first one though.

I largely gave up on the sci-fi/skiffy issue in the '80s, though I still don't like the term. Around here, I once got grief just for trying to explain why I don't like it.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I'm also not sure what you mean by "epo." In written fiction, many of the golden age writers had a good number of stories taking place in the solar system. If you're interested in that, I can mention some stories. More recently, Charles Sheffield had a good number of stories taking place in the solar system, some of them getting out to the TNO range. Some of his solar system titles: The McAndrew Chronicles, One Man's Universe, The Compleat McAndrew, Cold As Ice, The Ganymede Club, Dark as Day.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Has no one of you ever heard the word Epos before? Or did I miss a typo edit?

Not sure if I can help with truly epic fiction, anyway, but I remember that Heinlein and Niven both wrote short stories set on Pluto, with rather interesting concepts.

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[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

A hasty reply as the wife is walking thru the room behind me. She doesn't speak, yet I understand I am not really allowed tp type...

Thanks!! I'll check him out (I hope the sex change stuff doesn't distract too much from the planetary scenery).

Btw read on for clarification on "epos"

As I understood it, "SF" seems to be more serious, while Sci-Fi is more pulplike. So, they seem like two ends of a continuum...

"Epos" is not a plural... It's a word the dutch language borrowed from -presumably- greek, and it means a bunch of elaborate, connected stories. Like Star Wars, or the bible, or greek mythology.

I assumed the word would occur in English too, but apparently not.


O yeah, Barsoon... Nver read them, but they might be cool. But not very realistic... Sci-fi rather than SF...



I'll let you know when I will.

What language is that?? Afrikaans? Schweizerdeutsch?? Letzenbuergisch??? Pennsylvanian????

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Neptune, Titan, Stars can Frighten...

It does, check my dictionary.com link.
I think nowadays Americans favor the term "epic" though, which is grammatically wrong being an adjective rather than a noun, but there you go.

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[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

Good work. Epos is a word, epo is not No, it's a noun. My Ame.Her.Dic. mentions its entomology as "From Latin epicus, from Greek epikos, from epos, song" If anything, epic as an adjective is a little short-cut taking.

That would be Frederik Pohl.

On the SF/Sci Fi issue--I tend to take SF to mean the rather serious genre of science fiction (seriously designed and written--still can be a comedy in content), with an attempt to build rich worlds and/or characters and/or ideas and/or science, versus Sci Fi for something that is pure entertainment with only token regard to the things that make good SF good. Now, if you try to put Star Trek into either category, no matter which one you will get a lot of people arguing that it's the other.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

It sure as heck ain't Volapük. It's an ancient tongue referenced by Robert Heinlein, spoken by the Stainless Steel Rat and once badly mangled by Saint William of Shatner in the halcyon days of the mid ninteen sixties. Some people declare it to be a superior tongue yet others decry it for needless complexity which may confuse people without a Western or European cultural heritage.

Look it up on Google because I'm not going to give you a straight answer.

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A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government
- Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
If only it was as easy to soothe my hunger by rubbing my belly.
- Diogenes of Sinope
Interdum Taurus Est Victor
- Old Joke

In English this is usually called a "series".

The biggest recent "epos" set within Solar system is Ben Bova's Grand Tour books, but I utterly hate them. I never read "Eight Worlds" so can not comment, but I definitely second Charles Sheffield, especially "Cold As Ice".

Unfortunately, if you want "realistic scenarios" that's about it. Every other within-Solar-system epos I know of was written during Golden Age and did not age well. Nowadays hard SF writers tend to go interstellar. Alastair Reynolds has a fully connected sprawling "Inhibitors" series, and a few short stories in it are set in Solar system, but just that -- a few short stories.

BTW, most discussions of science fiction go in "Small Media At Large" forum.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Isaac Asimov's collections of short stories in The Earth is Room Enough and The Martian Way.

Arthur C. Clarke's earlier stories tend to stay in the Solar System, as do some of Robert A. Heinlein's.

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"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." — Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

441!!!! :)

That's the ones I had in mind when I said "did not age well". OP asked for "realistic scenarios".

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Thanks all for the mentioned authors! I'll try to check them out (I prefer to buy my sf in 2nd-hand book stores; that way i'll get them in english - and cheap).

Seems like most of them are a couple of decades old... No adventuring on Quaoar or Orcus yet?

Thanks! I couldn't imagine the word not occurring in English...

Isn't it common in English anyway to use adjectives as nouns? (this is Off-Topic Babbling right?)


Cool! I will when I have more time.

Seems like a germanic word, the ne part meaning "no", the dank part "thanks", and inde some grammatic suffix thingy...

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Neptune, Titan, Stars can Frighten...